The sharing economy, also known as peer-to-peer-based (P2P) sharing or collaborative consumption, is defined as an economic system based on exchanging, sharing, and collaboration between individuals of goods, services as well as resources, either money or without monetary exchanges, via dedicated platforms.
It has grown over recent years, and many analysts expect this market to continue booming. Accordingly, Statisticareported that the global sharing economy’s value is predicted to reach $335 billion by 2025, from $15 billion in 2014.
The pandemic has further boosted this relatively new collaborative consumption. It enabled people to access services on-demand, allowing them to transact, travel, and participate in certain activities despite having various restrictions, particularly safety protocols.
With many people taking an interest in sharing sites, it has attracted criminalswaiting to exploit these services. P2P businesses have existing measures to keep their digital platforms safe. However, some of these security protocols are not strong enough to counter bad actors. Without a knowledge-based authentication alternative, companies are vulnerable to risks, particularly fraudulent attacks.
Inadequate identity authentication measures leave shared economy transactions and networks vulnerable to data breaches which can even lead to a company’s demise. Criminals can leverage stolen information to pretend to be someone else, then sell it on the dark web.
The collaborative concept on the shared-business model needs trust between both parties to conduct a transaction. Personal information is disclosed to each other such as their property’s address on home-sharing platforms. On the other hand, customers will need to provide their location when using ride-hailing apps or other services that require face-to-face meetings.
Such confidential information needs to be kept safe and P2P businesses can do this by having a secure authentication solution for online identity verification. It can assure customers that their physical and financial safety will not be compromised.
As the P2P economy continues to broaden, traditional security measures should be replaced with robust security authentication solutions.
Learn more about sharing economy and the need for identity verification by reading this infographic from AuthID.
